J. R. R. Tolkien
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Hugvísindasvið J. R. R. Tolkien A Marxist Reading B.A. Essay S. Gestur Stefánsson May 2014 Stefánsson 2 University of Iceland School of Humanities Department of English J. R. R. Tolkien A Marxist Reading B.A. Essay S. Gestur Stefánsson Kt.: 210282-3279 Supervisor: Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir May 2014 Stefánsson 3 Abstract J. R. R. Tolkien is a world renowned writer that is credited with the revival of the fantasy genre with his hobbit driven epics. His works have sold in the hundreds of millions and his novels have been transposed to films and comics which have been successful in their own right. With such exposure it is inevitable for his works to exert an influence on its audience. To criticize Tolkien’s work with the aim of getting a fuller understanding of both the author J. R. R. Tolkien and his works calls for well-defined form of literary criticism. Fortunately there is a school of literary criticism that promises to do just that. Marxist literary criticism is a form of criticism that is founded in the theories of Karl Marx and can be applied to any literary text. The aim of Marxist literary criticism is to expose the underlying social and political leanings of the author as well as his works. It is a literary criticism that does not only analyse the literary work but also the author himself in order to get a deeper understanding of both. Marxist literary criticism revolves around the idea that the input of an author affects his output, i.e. the condition, environment, education, religion and historical reality of the author affects his writing and the views expressed there within. Applying Marxist literary criticism to Tolkien and his work, in this case The Hobbit, will clarify the political leanings of both the author and the novel. It will bring to the surface political leanings of the author that are infused into his work. The political message of such a beloved novel, with such a huge audience is inevitably of interest to those who have the twin interests of both politics and J. R. R. Tolkien. Stefánsson 4 Table of Contents Introduction.................................................................................................................................................. 5 The Hobbit .................................................................................................................................................... 8 Marxist Literary Criticism and Theory......................................................................................................... 10 Character Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 15 A Fairy Tale, sort of..................................................................................................................................... 18 J. R. R. Tolkien introduction ........................................................................................................................ 20 The story of Tolkien and early influences: .................................................................................................. 21 Early days.................................................................................................................................................... 21 Orphan Tolkien ........................................................................................................................................... 24 Tolkien’s Military years............................................................................................................................... 26 Tolkien’s academic and writing career ....................................................................................................... 27 In Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 28 Bibliography................................................................................................................................................ 30 Stefánsson 5 Introduction John Ronald Reuel Tolkien has written some of the world’s foremost fantasy fiction in works such as The Hobbit: There and Back Again (1937), The Lord of The Rings (published in three volumes in 1954 and 1955) and The Silmarillion (pub. posthumously 1977). His tales of Middle- Earth have been credited for the revival of the fantasy genre in modern times. It is easy to extrapolate his influences merely in terms of copies sold, 150 million copies of The Lord of the Rings and 100 million copies sold of The Hobbit, it was first published just two years before the start of the Second World War and his second fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings was partially written during the Second World War. Tolkien’s works are thought of as fantasy novels. In a fantasy novel the realm in which the story takes place is fictional, such as Tolkien’s Middle- Earth, rather than in some version of the real world. Even though these works of fiction are in the realm of fantasy it is important to note that every piece of fiction, no matter how fantastic, is derived from the ideologies of the writer and as such is based in reality. (Jeff419) (Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien a Biography) Tolkien’s works of fantasy have reached millions of people as the sales numbers of his novels would suggest. But obviously his audience is not limited to the readers of his novels as there have been number adaptations for other media. The best known adaptions would be Peter Jackson’s movie adaptions of The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring 2001, The Two Towers 2002 and The Return of the King 2003). There were of course numerous other adaptations. For instance there was a comic book version made based on Ralph Bakshi’s movie, published in three volumes in 1979, 1980 and 1981) and cartoon versions of both The Hobbit (Bilbo Baggins: A Hobbits tale, Jules Bass & Arthur Rankin Jr. 1978) and The Lord of the Rings (Ralph Bakshi 1978) along with a host of other projects. (The Lord of the Rings) (Tolkien Comics) (The Hobbit) (Peter Robert Jackson) There are common themes running through Tolkien’s two best known works. The theme of the unspectacular individual overcoming the odds and becoming the hero runs through both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There is also the theme of staying true despite the uncertainty of success. There are common themes of heroism and bravery. Obviously there are also strong themes of good and evil. In fact, the battle between good and evil is rarely as obvious Stefánsson 6 as in Tolkien’s most popular works as they incorporate traditions of both myth and fairy tales who are traditionally overt in regard to good and evil. The good characters are mostly honourable, men, elves and dwarfs and they live in relative peace and harmony with their environment while evil is represented by a necromancer who destroys his lands in quest of power and commands legions of goblins. (campbell) In a historical analysis of one of his works The Hobbit we will get some kind of a sense of his ideologies and at the same time learn more about the person behind the children’s classic. It is though difficult to keep only to The Hobbit in this context as Tolkien’s works are so interrelated. Thus referring to Tolkien’s other works becomes inevitable and necessary to give a more full reading of Tolkien and his works as a whole. However taking a closer look at The Hobbit does provide us with a window into Tolkien’s psyche as it is an allegory of his belief system. Marxist literary criticism offers a method that might yield clues as to the underlying ideologies of any writer, at least to an extent. It can help bring to focus otherwise obscure tendencies of a writer and ultimately it will help deciphering the ideologies of Tolkien in their varied complexity. It can perhaps shed a light on his religious background and how it helped shape his mythical world, it might bring to light why his writings have such a strong leaning towards preservation of the natural realm. I would argue that in some ways he was ahead of his times and that his opinions would be popular today, even though he had a religious background which these days is often somewhat frowned upon. He received an excellent education and had a stellar academic career and a writing career. His experiences with nature on the one hand and religion on the other, as a child and an adolescent make him seem as an enlightened individual. He was something a kin to an environmentalist and a humanist with an audience in the hundreds of millions. His influence as such is considerable and the question of the underlying meaning of his works and of his own ideologies becomes relevant. It was Tolkien’s convictions of religion, inspired by his mother and later his guardian, that guided him in the early 20th century and not the humanist movement directly. Tolkien was a proto-environmentalist with an audience in the hundreds of millions whose works were published right about the time the environmental movement, or green movement, started gaining momentum in the 1950’s. His ideas of politics, faith, social-system and his thoughts on conservation, or respect for nature, would make him popular among large parts of the current Western World but there is a more controversial aspect to his ideologies. Tolkien was by today’s Stefánsson 7 standards of politics a proto-environmentalist and a quite devout Catholic. Tolkien’s texts also suggest that he was in favour of a class system, as he writes about